1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) technology, and more particularly to a system and method for generating, distributing, storing and performing musical work files.
2. Description of the Background Art
Music is one of the most popular forms of creative expression. Accordingly, musical system designers have attempted to provide composers with musical tools, such as Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) technology and General MIDI, for facilitating the creation, distribution, storage and performance of musical works.
MIDI is an international standard that specifies a hardware setup and a software protocol for controlling electronic music instruments. The hardware setup is a serial communications network that runs quickly enough to play very complex music in real time. The software protocol is comprehensive and flexible, and provides a mechanism for encoding basic note playing, performance expression, sound selection and elaborate modes of tape machine and theatrical control. Although MIDI is compact, flexible and lends itself to multimedia applications, traditional MIDI equipment is commonly acknowledged as far too complex for consumers to handle. Further, MIDI compositions are system dependent, and thus, for example, musical information intended by the composer to represent the sounds of a grand piano may be reproduced by a first player system as a bass guitar and by a second player system as a flute.
In response to the complexity and system dependence of MIDI, music system designers created General MIDI which recommends standards and common practices for providing more predictable results and a greater ease of use. Thus, musical information intended by the composer to represent the sounds of a grand piano will be played by all player systems which implement General MIDI as a grand piano. However, because of several critical limitations including a lack of variety, a lack of playing audio samples and poor expressive quality, composers have found General MIDI to be inhibiting.
Therefore, a system and method are needed to provide composers with a musical tool that facilitates generation, distribution, storage and performance of musical information without compromising composer intention, creativity and sound quality.